Bellinger, Dodgers avenge regular season finish by toppling Giants in epic NLDS
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by Rowan Kavner
Cody Bellinger belted the fourth slider he saw from hard-throwing Giants rookie closer Camilo Doval through the right side of a shifted infield and knew immediately. He dropped his bat, pointed his finger toward his dugout at Oracle Park and sprinted to first base, where he pounded his chest and belted out a euphoric scream toward his raucous teammates.
With one victorious swing in the ninth inning Thursday night, Bellinger put a frustrating regular season behind and moved the Dodgers forward to the National League Championship Series.
“You don’t think about being that guy,” Bellinger said after delivering the game-winning hit of a 2–1 win. “Just when the opportunity is there, the moment is there, you try to stay simple and stay within yourself. Just extremely blessed to be able to be in the moment.”
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To advance beyond the division rivals that ended their eight-year National League West reign, it would require both Bellinger and the Dodgers to overcome their 2021 shortcomings. A 106-win season that tied a Dodger franchise record wasn’t enough to topple a relentless Giants team that refused to relinquish their slim division lead in a frenzied chase toward October.
The razor-thin difference between the top two teams in baseball was magnified through a National League Division Series that required all five games.
“I’ve been a part of Red Sox-Yankees, and that’s one of the best (rivalries) in all of sports, and Dodgers-Giants is right behind it, if not even with it,” said Mookie Betts. “It’s been a lot of fun. That’s what makes the game so enjoyable, playing against someone that’s just as good as you are.”
Before Giants ace Logan Webb threw his first pitch of a deciding Game 5, Vin Scully tweeted it was the most important game in the history of a heated rivalry that’s gone back more than a century and picked up steam when both clubs moved to the West Coast in 1958. In all their time as National League foes, the Dodgers and Giants had never met in a postseason series — a fact that many players involved this year were shocked to hear.
All eyes fixated on the clubs as the final game arrived. It was the only Division Series to go the distance.
“This is what baseball wants,” manager Dave Roberts said after forcing a Game 5. “We’re going to be the only show in town. So, if you have a pulse or you’re a sports fan, you better be watching Dodgers-Giants.”
The finale, and the series, did not disappoint.
In their 19 regular season games against each other, the Giants took 10 and the Dodgers took nine. The Giants scored 78 runs in those games, while the Dodgers scored 80. Entering Game 5, both teams had 109 wins apiece including the start to the postseason.
The Giants turned to the 24-year-old right-hander who held the Dodgers scoreless for 7 2/3 innings in Game 1. Webb delivered another gem Thursday, fielding a medley of harmless dribblers back to the mound and holding the Dodgers to one run in seven innings. The first three hits Webb surrendered all came off the bat of Betts. The fourth provided the only damage.
After a Betts single in the sixth inning, he looked to generate one of the Dodgers’ few scoring opportunities when he snagged second base. The steal proved vital, as Corey Seager followed with a double to put the Dodgers on the board. Betts and Chad Fonville are now the only Dodgers ever to go a perfect 4-for-4 in a postseason game.
“This is when the stars are stars, and he’s a superstar,” Roberts said. “He had great at-bats. He’s played great defense for us. He set the table. He competed.”
The Dodgers utilized a different pitching strategy from the Giants, surprising many by opening Game 5 with Corey Knebel instead of anticipated starter Julio Urías. Their move, deployed to neutralize the Giants’ matchup advantages, also worked.
“If anyone would have dissented, we wouldn’t have done it,” said president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who credited Urías for again tenaciously handling anything thrown at him. “As we talked through it, we thought it was our best chance to hold them at bay.”
Knebel navigated around traffic in a scoreless first. Brusdar Graterol did the same in a scoreless second, leading to Urías taking the bulk of the innings from there. Urías’ lone run allowed in four innings came on a solo homer to Darin Ruf — the first home run he had allowed since Aug. 30.
Urías now holds a 1.41 postseason ERA since the start of last year’s playoffs.
“He’s unfazed by whatever it is, whenever,” Friedman said. “I just can’t say enough about him.”
His work set the stage for Blake Treinen and Kenley Jansen to follow with two perfect innings, keeping the game tied entering the ninth inning. At that point, the evenly-matched clubs had each scored their lone run in the same inning and totaled six hits apiece.
Doval, a talented 24-year-old who didn’t allow a run in September, began the ninth inning with a groundout from Will Smith. Justin Turner then absorbed a 100-mph fastball off his elbow pad to reach base.
A night before the game, Gavin Lux sent a gif to Bellinger of Kobe Bryant throwing an alley-oop to Shaq with the message, “That’s me and you tomorrow night.”
Lux delivered the lob to Bellinger with a single through the right side of the infield, putting a runner in scoring position for Bellinger to finish off the Giants with his sixth hit and fourth RBI of the series.
“That last at-bat, there was just fight in there,” Roberts said. “It wasn’t about mechanics. It was just about a fight. It was me vs. you.”
Bellinger is now batting .286 this postseason after posting a .165 batting average in a trying regular season impacted by a leg fracture and a hamstring issue while he built back strength from offseason shoulder surgery.
Of course, none of that matters now. He came through with the biggest hit of the year, helping the Dodgers move on to face the Braves in a rematch of last year’s down-to-the-wire NLCS.
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“For him, being able to kind of flush the regular season and flip the switch to the postseason has been big for him,” Friedman said. “The work he’s put in, how much he cares, it’s not lost on anybody.”
The Giants would still get one last chance.
In the 48 hours between Wednesday’s Game 4 and Friday’s Game 5, Max Scherzer had lobbied Roberts to pitch. The 37-year-old had already started Games 1 and 4, but he trotted out to the bullpen midway through the contest.
“It’s a lot like being a 12-year-old again,” Scherzer said.
Once Bellinger put the Dodgers ahead, and after Jansen was pinch-hit for in the top of the ninth, the bottom of the frame belonged to Scherzer. He tossed the final three outs to earn his first career save, finished off by an 0–2 check from Wilmer Flores that was ruled a swing.
Roberts knew there might be a cost to deploying Scherzer, but keeping the season alive mattered more. As of now, he still expects the deadline acquisition ace to start Game 1 of the NLCS on Saturday.
“What great ballclubs have the ability to do is understand the gravity of the moment, a series in this case, give everything they can to the moment or series, which we did — it was a huge series — but also understand that our job’s not done,” Roberts said. “We poured everything we could into this series. It took everything we had to beat these guys. But we have a day to reset, and now our focus turns to the Braves.”
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Bellinger, Dodgers avenge regular season and topple Giants in epic NLDS was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.